


long for, yearn for, hunger for

by nbsherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock-centric, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4755146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbsherlock/pseuds/nbsherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he wonders if john can feel the extra beat of sherlock's heart in his chest, thumping away, next to his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	long for, yearn for, hunger for

john goes home after dinner. 

this is significant for a multitude of reasons but the most painful of all of them is knowing that he won't be back for a while. happy couples will stay happy together and sleep in the same bed even after a case and chinese food and sherlock will still be alone. 

john takes a taxi home and opens the door and maybe mary is asleep in bed but maybe she is awake on the couch and she's just finishing a movie and when she sees him her eyes light up and his eyes spark the way they used to when sherlock figured out who dismembered who. maybe they kiss. maybe john slips into bed with mary and they wrap around each other. 

either way, sherlock sleeps on his side. his bed is much too big for one person so he sleeps with his back facing the opposite (empty) side. his phone is on the mattress next to him and sometimes he falls asleep with it in his hand and dreams that john calls and they go out to dinner and john doesn't go home after. 

he climbs the stairs of 221b and slips into his bed, or sherlock's bed, and he sleeps there. 

but this is just a dream. john takes a taxi home. sherlock takes a taxi home and he gives a different address. times like these make him regret days when his mind was shouting and screaming and he insisted john take a separate cab in fear that the extra stimulation of john's presence, his voice, would send him overboard. he wishes he could take it back now. he wishes for cab rides together with the same destination and aches for the times when john doesn't bother to slide all the way into the other seat and sits in the middle and his thigh leans against sherlock's-- oh god, he aches for it. 

now, sherlock climbs the stairs of 221b alone and looks around the sitting room. he feels lost. he doesn't want to get in his big bed and feel empty and lonely and (the dark is penetrative, he opens his eyes and sees nothing but black) frightened, but he must. 

when the case is over and they're eating: starving, giddy, sherlock feels full and excited. like he could do anything. like his hands won't stop moving and he wants to grab john and pull him apart, crawl under his skin and stay there pleasepleaseplease he wants to stay there. 

he wants; grasping and clawing through into john and teeth scraping his neck making him keen and wail and, still-- the feel of john's arm against his as they walk from crime scene to thai restaurant is just as punishing and unbearable as, say, john's fingernails breaking through his skin or (fuck) how his voice sounded, how his face looked when he said "i do" on a sunny may afternoon, months ago. 

but they get in separate taxis and go in separate directions and sherlock feels the manic energy drip from his fingertips and he shakes, but not in that happy, brilliant way he does when john is by his side saying "fantastic!" but in that empty, disturbing way that means that tonight is a Danger Night and maybe he might even act on it this time. 

and there's a certain comfort in knowing mycroft can't call john, now. can't warn him that tonight could be bad. can't tell him to rip apart sherlock's sock index, searching for something that won't be there but, yet again, now, years after "i'm clean, i don't even smoke", after, "do you ever reply?", there could be something there. hidden away for no one to find because no one's looking for it. he could have twelve packs of cigarettes out on the kitchen table, could be shooting up on the couch in the sitting room while watching bloody james bond films and no one would be there to stop him. 

though maybe comfort isn't the right word. 

now-- post case. they've just finished up and lestrade knows not to ask for paperwork to be filled out anymore, knows these moments sherlock has with john are precious and held (clenched, tight in his hands, struggling to get free) very dearly. 

it was an eight or a nine. sherlock's been working along the edges of this one for a few days, saving the particularly juicy bits for john. stocking them up so that when he is finally presented with them it's overwhelming and john gives him that look like he's done something unbelievable and, maybe, to an outsider (he asked lestrade once, drunk, a bit weepy, "how do we look? do we look alright?") a bit lovestruck. these are thoughts sherlock doesn't ever dare to have, though. not anymore. 

they're stumbling along the streets of london (it feels so right, so good. like home and if sherlock breathes deeply enough he can smell john's exhilaration.) and their shoulders brush together and they're hiccuping with laughter and sherlock's side is sore from where the murderer socked him with a tire iron, but he can ignore it. it's a dull throb compared to the frantic aching of his chest, his lungs, his heart. 

john says, "god, that was incredible." sherlock smiles and says, 

"it was, wasn't it?"

(wasn't it???)

and john laughs as they make their way into their favorite chinese. (when sherlock was dead, john stopped eating here. he knows this because when they first went again, after a case, john commented on their change in decor.) john collapses into a booth and is still laughing and grinning. 

sherlock's fingertips ache. even his body, his transport, yearns for contact. 

they eat quickly and they only talk about the case. john doesn't bring up mary. he knows not to. sherlock doesn't want to think about why he knows not to. 

they get their leftovers to go and john says he's "tired, i'd better get home." and its funny (hilarious) that just small things like that-- reminders that home is a different place for john than it is for sherlock-- make him feel like he's just been shot through the side of his head, gun against his temple. 

and sherlock nods, he smiles. he has to smile because he is HAPPY john chose to come out with him tonight. he says so, says "thanks for tagging along" and john laughs, says, 

"thanks for letting me."

as if that was a conscious decision, not just something he physically, at his core, had to do. 

they get in separate cabs. 

when he gets home he feels completely hollow. like all of his energy has soaked into the floor of the cab or maybe it's still with john. 

(quick surgery, while neither of them were paying attention; sherlock's skin sliced open, his heart in careful hands, transplanted behind john's ribs, big and full and painful in john's chest. hardly a twin to his own heart, a smaller, gentler thing. loud, angry, desperate, tortured.)

he wonders if john can feel the extra beat of sherlock's heart in his chest, thumping away, next to his own. 

he thinks,

mary putting her ear to john's chest and hearing sherlock's love there. 

he thinks, maybe he'll call tomorrow, and wraps his fingers around the phone. 

he thinks, he thinks, he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao sorry about this im sorry. come suffer w me at either waterwltch or stopmartinfreeman on tumblr.


End file.
